"This is a wonderful, deep, and thoughtful book, providing insight into areas of health we rarely travel.
I am particularly grateful for Ms/Dr/Sister Kehoe's inclusion of her own story, her doubts and struggles.
I recommend it for anyone interested in their own spiritual journeys, workers in health care, especially in the fields of aging and mental health. It is a good read."
"Anyone working with the homeless or the mentally ill will find in this book a compassionate yet realistic lens through which to better understand both the suffering and the human potential of this often invisible population. Dr. Kehoe uses her own spiritual journey to find remarkable common ground with the mentally ill clients who choose to gather to talk about their understanding of God and the role of spirituality in their lives. While their stories are unusual and sometimes unbearably sad, their insights are profound and universal."
"Rarely do clinicians write with such compassion and generosity of spirit about people with mental illness. Dr. Kehoe not only listens with compassion and an open mind, but also tells her story with an unflinching honesty. This book, I hope, will enable more clinicians, pastoral counselors, caregivers and ordinary people to listen with more care to those with mental illness. It will, I also hope, open the hearts and minds of psychologists and psychiatrists to pay sympathetic attention to the religious dimension of their clients' lives. A wonderful book." William A. Barry, S.J., Ph.D.
Book Signing Events
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"...In a world that seems to be rather smug about our current state of intellectual prowess, and, in too many cases, "comfortable" about our worldview or what we think we know, Kehoe's book provides a bridge to a place our ignorance and lack of courage has prevented us from going. This is a book that needs to be read, discussed and acted upon by further explorations into the necessity of developing clinical and therapeutic approaches to the mentally ill that embrace the realm of the spiritual life as essential to not only relief, healing and wholeness, but the prevention of certain forms and degrees of mental illness. As Kehoe succinctly points out:..."
"I read this book as a general reader, not as a professional. I read it in a two-day period and then re-read it. It is emotional and heart wrenching at times, both when the patients relate their lives and feelings and when Nancy describes her personal, religious and spiritual journey. There is also humor here. I feel Nancy Kehoe is a determined and creative woman.
Reading the book made me look at people I see every day in a new way, with more empathy to what their lives may be."
"By allowing "religious" and "spiritual" experiences and understandings to be considered in her therapy groups Nancy Kehoe offers a view of the beauty and strengths of lives often ignored because of the "mentally ill" label. And with extraordinary honesty she shares how her discovery and acceptance of her clients' struggles began to change her sense of herself and her own "spiritual" life. Anyone interested in the interface between religion and mental illness or, more profoundly, in the deep roots of our mental and spiritual psyches, will love this book. A "Religious History Questionnaire" that is appended will be helpful for clinicians and book club leaders alike."
